Astray

Last night my stomach tightened as I pulled Johnny’s red jacket out of the dryer. This is the jacket I described to the police officer. Will I ever be able to look at it the same way again?

*

This past Sunday morning at 8, I holler at the kids to get moving. Johnny isn’t in bed, but that is normal. As the youngest, he usually is out of bed before anyone else on weekends. Routine bedlam ensues, with teenagers jostling for the bathroom and grumbling over who ate the last piece of banana bread. At 8:40, Gil and I bellow for all to get into the car.  

Only when everyone is clambering out the door do we realize Johnny isn’t in the house. I huff, questioning why he would go out to play when he knows we are heading to church. 

Johnny is my independent, curious one. He’s the child most likely to make himself a spinach and mushroom omelet for breakfast, experimenting with spices. The night before, he was obsessed with conquering a new Rubik’s Cube. He told me recently that he is too old for hugs and kisses now, and I conceded on the kisses but declared that I will hug him for as long as I live, so too bad for him.

His three teenage siblings are often too busy for him, and Johnny doesn’t like playing by himself. His screen time had been confiscated for this weekend, so that’s likely what drove him outside. He loves roaming the neighborhood on his bike or hoverboard, but today both of those things are still in our garage. Plus, he knows there are three rules: Don’t leave the house without telling a parent. Don’t leave the neighborhood. Don’t go inside anyone’s house. 

I roll my eyes. He has obviously broken at least one of these rules, and now we will be late for church. The girls and I split up, each walking in a different direction. It doesn’t take long to meet up again, as our neighborhood is set in a circle. Gil knocks on the doors of the kids Johnny plays with. I call Karen, the mom of the four kids who Johnny has embraced as his little siblings. It’s the one home he’s allowed to enter. He’s not there.

Gil checks our Ring camera, but we don’t have a subscription that records anything. All we can tell is that there was movement at the door at 7:15. That means he’s been gone for almost two hours. 

Grace and I circle the neighborhood again, and this time my steps are faster, harder, my breath shallow. Gil goes across the street to our neighbor who does have a camera. He sends Lily, my introvert, to ask our other surrounding neighbors if they caught anything on tape. She doesn’t hesitate. 

At 9:30, I’m back at the house, and I tell Gil I’m calling the police. My fingers shake. My voice shakes, then breaks, as I say to the operator I need to report a missing child. Gil jumps in his car and starts driving the area, needing to do something, anything.

I pace the front lawn with my phone, looking for a recent photo of Johnny, knowing the police will want one. The clouds are low and misty, recovering from the storm the night before. My mind methodically filters through options, fighting hard to stay rational, flirting with sinister fears. There must be a logical explanation. My thoughts bang against blank walls, devoid of answers.

The officer arrives, tall and calm. He asks how old Johnny is and I choke on my answer that he’ll be eleven on Thursday. What is he wearing? The girls and I search his dresser and the coat closet, looking for clues, and we decide that he must be wearing his green Minecraft pajamas and his red jacket. I can’t get enough air in my lungs. 

We follow the officer through the house as he checks all the places we already checked: under the beds, inside closets. I start to tell him that there’s no way Johnny could be in the backyard, because it was locked when I got up. But then I just shut up and let him check. Did he leave a note? Would he run away? I don’t think so. That’s not like him. But none of this makes any sense anyway. 

I take the officer down the street and around the corner to Karen’s house, and ask her kids if they have any ideas where Johnny might be. The officer receives a call and stops me: He’s back, I hear him say. I hear Grace yelling from down the street: Mom!

I turn and run in my dressed-for-church black ankle boots. Johnny is standing in the middle of the street, blinking bewildered in his red jacket, surrounded by three police cars. He’s here. He’s okay.

My emotion bursts through the dam and there’s relief and anger and love and questions. He was bored this morning, and frustrated because his screen time had been confiscated. So he went for a walk and he kept walking. He tells us he walked past the convenience store and past the gas station and walked for another mile on the gravel, alongside a sparsely populated road, working his Rubik’s Cube. It was the opposite direction of where Gil was looking, because who would have thought he would go there? 

He was gone for three hours before he came home. He knows he broke the rules. He soberly apologizes to the officer and to us and seems stunned by the commotion he caused, humbly absorbing our anger and tears. 

The older ones watch solemnly from the lawn. Do they see the parable before them? Biology absent, I wonder if they question the strength of the bonds of adoption. Are those bonds strong enough to hold the weight of their doubts, their losses, and even the one who goes astray? 

To the ends of the earth, my children. We will always be relentless. 

In an instant, everything that was not okay is okay again. Our arms around Johnny in his red jacket, we walk home.